jhuggett
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2007
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I've been smoking pipes for about four years now and one thing that I never got into was blends containing Latakia. The first year or so it would actually make me a little ill if a blend contained anything more than trace amounts. Over the last couple years curiosity would get the better of me or I would start to get jealous of all of you that enjoyed something so much and I could not so I would try a sample here and there. Sometimes I was surprised to find that I somewhat enjoyed them but still couldn't imagine smoking them regularly.
Yesterday was a cool, very autumn like day and when I was thinking of having a pipe I found myself thinking I may want to have an English blend. Up until now I had only smoked the small amount of English blends I had tried out of a cheap meerschaum. I didn't want to ghost any of my good pipes.
Well the time came so I went to my little cellar and realized I only had one English blend in there. A tin of Davidoff Royalty that was gifted to me by Danish Pipe Guy. The date on the tin was 9/99. I couldn't very well smoke such a blend in that crappy meerschaum so I pulled out my recently acquired Stanwell 217 that had still remained unsmoked.
I was a little nervous about taking the leap of dedicating just one of my pipes to English blends but figured what the hell? I got a great deal on that Stanwell and it seems like a pipe made for English blends. So I cracked open the 11 year old Royalty. I actually loved the smell this time. It's not a Latakia heavy blend but it still smelled strong to me.
I loaded it up and off I went. Right away I was a happy camper. Sweet, smoky and a little spicy. It was one of those memorable smokes we are lucky enough to experience every so often. I must have been puffing pretty hard because my pipe started to gurgle a little about half way through. I was disappointed to find out I couldn't get a cleaner all the way through so I had to let it cool down so I could take off the stem to fix the problem. After that though it was smooth sailing and I finished the bowl.
I'm hoping this opens up the world of English blends to me. The only thing that makes me remain skeptical is that this is such a well aged tin. If that's the case I will at least really enjoy smoking the rest of it over time. I think the next blend I will be setting my eye on is Chelsea Morning. It sounds like an amazing blend.
Yesterday was a cool, very autumn like day and when I was thinking of having a pipe I found myself thinking I may want to have an English blend. Up until now I had only smoked the small amount of English blends I had tried out of a cheap meerschaum. I didn't want to ghost any of my good pipes.
Well the time came so I went to my little cellar and realized I only had one English blend in there. A tin of Davidoff Royalty that was gifted to me by Danish Pipe Guy. The date on the tin was 9/99. I couldn't very well smoke such a blend in that crappy meerschaum so I pulled out my recently acquired Stanwell 217 that had still remained unsmoked.
I was a little nervous about taking the leap of dedicating just one of my pipes to English blends but figured what the hell? I got a great deal on that Stanwell and it seems like a pipe made for English blends. So I cracked open the 11 year old Royalty. I actually loved the smell this time. It's not a Latakia heavy blend but it still smelled strong to me.
I loaded it up and off I went. Right away I was a happy camper. Sweet, smoky and a little spicy. It was one of those memorable smokes we are lucky enough to experience every so often. I must have been puffing pretty hard because my pipe started to gurgle a little about half way through. I was disappointed to find out I couldn't get a cleaner all the way through so I had to let it cool down so I could take off the stem to fix the problem. After that though it was smooth sailing and I finished the bowl.
I'm hoping this opens up the world of English blends to me. The only thing that makes me remain skeptical is that this is such a well aged tin. If that's the case I will at least really enjoy smoking the rest of it over time. I think the next blend I will be setting my eye on is Chelsea Morning. It sounds like an amazing blend.
